Addiction

Kinds of Addiction Treatment

Treatment for addiction can require different kinds and different intensities of treatment and support, depending on the severity of the addiction, the presence of other medical or psychiatric conditions, life stressors, and available social support. The American Society for Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has developed a fairly elaborate set of criteria that considers 6 dimensions of the patient’s situation. Basically, however, these boil down to the following:

1) Do you need medically supervised detox? This is usually short-term (a few days), and is most commonly indicated for dependence on alcohol, benzodiazepines, or barbiturates (rarely prescribed now except to treat epilepsy), as withdrawal from these can be life-threatening. Withdrawal from other drugs can require or benefit from medical supervision, depending on circumstances.

2) Do you need the structure of a residential rehab setting? This may be helpful during the first weeks or months of sobriety, especially if purely outpatient treatment has not been successful, or if most or all of the people in your social network also use drugs or alcohol.

3) Do you have other psychiatric conditions (depression, bipolar disorder, an anxiety disorder, or a personality disorder, etc.) that also need to be addressed? If so, you may need a provider or program that is capable of treating “dual diagnosis” patients – that is, persons who have both an addictive disorder and a non-addictive psychiatric condition.

4) Individual therapy and support groups are often helpful. Therapy is particularly important for dual diagnosis patients. Support groups can be helpful both in providing practical advice from people with a range of experiences similar to your own, though perhaps at different stages of recovery, and also in providing support and accountability much more frequently than is usually available from a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. Support groups meet all the time and are even available on line.

Please be aware:Facilities are listed here and elsewhere on this website for informational purposes only. Listing here does not constitute endorsement of a particular facility for a particular patient or condition. Please consult your physician and/or therapist in making your decision.

Inpatient Detox

The inpatient psychiatric facilities at UCLA are not licensed for pure inpatient medical detox. Life-threatening detox from alcohol or benzodiazepines can be managed in the ER and on the medical wards, but they are not equipped to provide psychiatric services in those settings. UCLA-RNPH can treat dual diagnosis patients, if the primary problem is the non-addictive condition.

Outpatient Treatment for General Addiction

• Matrix Institute: an evidence-based, primarily cognitive-behavioral (CBT) approach for addiction. Many of their programs are targeted towards working professionals. They have a range of program from intensive day programs to weekly maintenance programs, for adults and adolescents.

• Phoenix House a residential treatment program for those who are trying to break the cycle of substance abuse. Provides group therapy, individual counseling, and a variety of other services in both residential and outpatient settings.

Support Groups:

• Most support groups derive from the 12-Step model initially developed by Bill W., Dr. Bob, and the other founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. The 12 steps are described here. In general, 12-step programs believe that recovery requires first acknowledging one’s addiction—that one is helpless in the face of one’s addiction—and seeking help from an outside power, which is commonly understood as God, though 12-step fellowships are not connected with any particular denomination or religious or spiritual organization and do not require any specific creed or statement of belief from their members. One then examines one’s past actions and specifically mistakes, looking to find ways to make amends to those one has harmed, to learn a new way of living without addiction, and helping others on their own paths to recovery.

• A completely secular alternative to 12-Step programs is SMART Recovery®, which was started in Los Angeles in the 1980s and incorporates CBT principles in a self-help format.

This site was created on 21 Sep 1996. All original textual and photographic material on these pages is copyrighted 1996-2012 by Timothy M. Hall unless otherwise noted.